


Like Your Shadow

by Calyss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: As in: people using the cruciatus curse nothing gory (for now), Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dreams and Nightmares, Harry's kind of a dumbass but that's news for no one, Illustrated, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Behavior, Slytherin's Locket, Tom's having the time of his life, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-02 08:45:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15793083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calyss/pseuds/Calyss
Summary: Harry is being followed around by a younger version of the Dark Lord, that only him can see. Of course it has nothing to do with that pretty locket he found the previous summer while he was cleaning his godfather's house, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hate myself. I was minding my own business, drawing stuff and all, and then there's a Tom on my screen, and then there's a Harry, and then I'm like "what's happening here? where does this tension comes from? (outside of the obvious) where the fuck are they sitting?" and now here we are - where we always seem to end up: with a bloody fic. Great.

 

"Harry?"

...

" _Harry?!_ "

"Mate, you alright?"

Harry jumped as Ron's hand landed on his shoulder, startling him out of the one sided glaring competition he had been engaged since they had come down for breakfast.

"I'm fine," he responded dismissively.

He eyed the ghost of Tom Riddle warrily, but the apparition was ignoring him for now, which he should have been grateful for, he supposed, but the way he was looking at Ginny Weasley, who was seating farther down the Gryffindor table, was even more disturbing than how he'd been staring at Harry himself for the past few days.

"You haven't eaten anything," Ron remarked. Hermione nodded emphatically from the other side of the table, eyes wide in concern. She had put down her charms book, and Harry realized then that she had been the one trying to catch his attention earlier.

"Just not hungry," he mumbled.

His friends exchanged unconvinced glances, but let him be, Hermione reopening her book and Ron going back to his breakfast.

Riddle snickered - silent, as ever, but it was still clearly a snicker - twirling the heavy ring he was wearing around his finger.

The ring was new, Harry realized, squinting at the piece of jewelry in suspicion. But then again, a lot of things were "new" about Riddle's appearance.

He had looked older at first. Had been wearing a dark suit and an equally dark cape, both without any distinctive signs but elegant nonetheless - or maybe it was just the person wearing the clothes, Harry had thought. He doubted Tom Riddle could have looked inelegant even wearing a potato sac - but after a few days, he'd appeared just as he had in the Chamber of Secrets: a terribly smug looking fifteen or sixteen years old schoolboy in Slytherin robes.

Harry hadn't seen the change take place. He had just been confronted with the fact when he'd looked up from his potion essay one evening. And Riddle had just smiled with mirth at his perplexity, though he hadn't said anything. Then again he hadn't said a word since he had appeared, so that didn't meant much.

He wasn't a particularly menacing apparition, save, of course, for the ever present dread that came with knowing his identity, combined with the one created by the mystery of his presence. He was just... Hanging around. Lounging on furniture. Watching Harry.

 _Have I finally gone crazy?_ Harry wondered. 

Riddle winked at him then, and Harry tried to not react beyond nervously gnawing on his already worse for wear fingernails and the increasingly rapid tapping of his foot on the stone floor. Merlin he was a twitching mess lately.

 _No, it’s just another of Voldemort’s game_ _s_ , he told himself for the hundredth time that week. A product of their connection, that the Dark Lord was somehow using against him - the unwanted proof that Snape was right, he was as abysmal in occlumancy than in potions. And he would not let himself be played with. That would please to many people far too much, if he started to doubt his own sanity. If he started to buy into the rumors that he was making things up, a maniacal that used his own deranged visions to attract attention… That was not him. He wasn’t a liar. He wasn’t a lunatic.

On the back of his hand, the words _"I must not tell lies"_ itched, and he clenched his fist over his wand. He had barely let go of it those last few days, ready as he was to fire at Riddle if the apparition started to act up.

A loud noise came from the professor’s table. Umbridge's glass had exploded in her hands, provoking first a few surprised exclamations, then a scattered laughter at her face - she looked as if stupefied as she watched a mix of blood and pumpkin juice drip from her drenched fist - then silence to fall over the entire Hall. No one wanted to endure whatever punishment the toad would reserve for the person who had dared hex her.

Tom Riddle smiled.

A wave of nausea filled Harry. Had the apparition done this? But he wasn’t even corporeal! Or at least, Harry hadn’t seen him interact with the world around him beyond sitting – or leaning, or fucking _sprawling_ , most of the time all over Harry’s things – and he wasn’t even visible! Surely what appeared to not being more than a mere vision couldn’t have the magical power necessary to make a glass explode on the other side of the Great Hall!

No, that must have been something else, maybe accidental magic, provoked by his own anger at the Inquisitor. Or maybe this didn’t even had anything to do with him. Maybe Umbridge’s screams about being hexed by a student weren’t unfounded. Merlin knew most of them, and Harry first, would have greatly enjoyed hexing the daylights out of her.

But even trying to rationalize this event wasn’t doing much to soothe his fraying nerves. Even his locket seemed to be affected, pulsating wildly against his skin, a trepidation Harry felt echo in his own heart, and he ran a trembling finger over his lucky charm through the open collar of his shirt, the contact of the cool metal doing what logical thought couldn’t, and he took a deep breath, _there is nothing to worry about_. Just the same weird stuff he had been dealing all his life.

Tom Riddle raised an eyebrow, the mocking expression on his face more eloquent than a thousand words would have been.

_"I WILL HAVE ORDER!"_

Umbridge's shout caused Harry to look up, only to see that the Great Hall was emptying quicker than if someone had thrown a dungbomb in it.

"Let's go," Ron said through his last mouthful of eggs. He swallowed while Hermione gathered her books hastily. "Don't wanna be the last ones in there. Betcha she wouldn't even care that it wasn't us. She'll just punish anyone she can get her hands on."

Harry didn't need to be told twice, he bolted from the bench, picking up his bag, and followed his friends out of the Great Hall. One last glance behind told him that Umbridge was being fussed over by Madam Pomfrey, who winked at him as she caught his gaze on her. The nurse would distract the Inquisitor long enough that everyone would get safely to their classes or common room. What a wonderful woman. 

And then there was Riddle, trailing behind Harry with a wide, satisfied grin, that gave Harry goosebumps. Seeing the Dark Lord so happy was never a good sign, illusion or not.

"Come on, you creep," he muttered. "Let's go to transfiguration." 

 


	2. Chapter 2

  


 

Waking up with a decades younger version of his arch-enemy looking down on him had been… Not as immediately frightening as Harry would like to admit.

Because the truth was, he had thought he was still dreaming.

It wasn’t exactly the first time he had dreamt of Tom Riddle, after all. Those dreams - _nightmares!_ \- had came and went since the end if his second year, two and a half years ago. They generally took place in the Chamber of Secrets, replays of his visit down there. Well, not _exact_ replays, because most of the time he would lose, and have to witness Ginny’s life-force being trained before he could vanquish the memory, or would have to suffer through the basilisk tearing him apart because the Sword of Gryffindor had refused to appear for him.

But sometimes his dreams were just that: dreams. Nonsensical and random, and he would see Riddle drinking tea with his aunt Petunia – he would pay actual money to see that in real life, if only he was sure it wouldn’t end in his aunt massacre. He had no love for the woman, but that wasn’t an end he wished to anyone – or dancing at the Yule Ball with a faceless girl that would later turn up to be Crookshank…

So maybe those dreams where more frequent lately, but Harry hadn’t thought that there was really anything to them given how frequently he dreamt of the Dark Lord anyway. Beside the obvious, of course. He was connected to Voldemort, could see through his eyes in his dreams and sometimes feel what he felt. That wasn’t a Voldemort-as-Riddle specific phenomenon. He was seeing him in all his forms, from the parasite that lived at the back of Quirell’s head and drank unicorn blood to the tall, snake like man he had seen emerge from a cauldron in Little Hangleton’s cemetery.

 _And let’s not forget creepy_ _B_ _abymort._

Having him show up as Tom Riddle was just the slightly less disturbing option. At least he didn’t wake up screaming. Just… Angry. And confused. And even one time…

Well he had went and emptied his stomach anyway, so disgusted by himself and the mere idea of… _Nope, not going there._ He had decided that he would never think again of that night. And had done a pretty good job of it...

Until he had woken up to find a pair of dark eyes focused on him, and long fingers running through his hair.

He had been slightly different than the Tom Riddle Harry was used to see in his dreams but his face was unmistakable. Older by a few years, but still as pale and handsome, as if he'd been chiseled in marble and brought to life by a spell, and even more so up close. So close, in fact, that Harry could see him clearly even without his glasses, and in the pale light of a mid-January morning.

“Are you coming down?” Ron had then asked loudly, coming into their dormitory to retrieve his forgotten tie. “I tried to wake you up earlier but you were sleeping like the dead…”

Harry had thrown himself out of his bed, stumbling backward as he desperately tried to evade the touch of what didn’t seemed to be a dream after all… And falling on his arse in Neville’s open trunk.

Ron of course had laughed at him, before offering a helping hand to get him back up.

He hadn’t mentioned the man standing over Harry’s bed, and said man hadn’t seemed alarmed that there was another witness to his presence in the castle. He had seemed pretty pleased, in fact. 

And seeing the Dark Lord so happy was never a good sign...

 

* * *

 

 

Classes had went without anything out of the ordinary happening, except maybe for the fact that Harry was even more distracted than usual. His eyes seemed to naturally find Riddle, wherever he would stand in the room. He would told himself that he was making sure the vision wasn't getting up to anything evil, but more than once he caught himself just staring at the curve of a high cheekbone or at the movement of long, elegant fingers as they tapped a silent rhythm against a desk or trailed along walls.

He'd snap himself out of it like one wakes realizing they're late to an important meeting, only to realize he'd lost minutes in contemplation.

Was this Voldemort's plan? Distract Harry enough that he wouldn't learn anything in school, thus keeping him in a state of embarrassing inadequacy and clueless enough that he could beat him with enough panache to mark the spirits of the wizarding world for the next few centuries?

_Well if I'm distracted as I am now the next time we encounter each other, he would have just to walk up to me and stick his wand through my ear and into my brain, I would probably not even notice._

For now Riddle was sitting on Ron’s desk, which Harry was grateful for. Better his friend’s than his. He’d had to crane his neck awkwardly during that one transfiguration class last week in order to see McGonagall's blackboard, which had earned him even more curious glances from his classmates than usual. Merlin, as if he needed bad posture added to the list of the things that that people thought were wrong with him!

Riddle looked bored out of his mind, but probably not for the same reason most of the students in the room were. After all, there were no doubts the Dark Lord, or this strange manifestation of his past self, knew everything and even more than Flitwick would teach them this year, or the next. Or the one after that. Harry's fifth years classes had to be terribly dull for him. So why was he hanging around even during those? He wasn't _forced_ to be there all the time. He usually disappeared a few hours a day, and even left Harry to shower and go to the bathroom in peace! 

As if sensing his eyes on him, Riddle turned toward Harry, and with a mischievous smile, threw his head backward, exposing the line of his throat to the light falling from the nearby window, leaning even further back on Ron's desk, as if he was a model for a classic sculptor or one of those muggle magazines Harry's aunt liked to pretend she was only reading for the cooking tips.

Harry couldn't help but blush at he sight, a sickening mix of anger and... something else filling him up. That feeling kept churning in his stomach during the rest of the class, and was still present when he left, serving Ron and Hermione some rubbish excuse about having to do check something at the library for the next AD meeting. Ron made a mildly disgusted face before giving him a friendly tap on the shoulder and grumbling something about extra Quidditch practice before he was on his way, and Hermione proposed to come with him, on the premise that she knew the library so well, it would be much quicker if she was there to help. But he insisted that it was fine, she had her own work to do, and she let it go. His friends had let a lot of things go that last week, maybe because his face was just screaming " _leave me alone!_ ".  

And, Merlin, how he wanted to be left alone right now. He needed to calm down, what with one his bi-weekly one on one session with Snape coming this evening right after diner. 

It would have been ideal if Riddle had disappeared right then, because it would be much easier if the source of his turmoil weren't here, but, well, nothing was ever ideal in Harry's life, was it?

To Harry’s relief, Snape hadn’t see Riddle during the one Occlumency lesson they had had since the young Dark Lord had appeared. It would have been a very awkward thing to explain, first because he had no idea how it had happened, secondly because, well, maybe, just _maybe_ , he should have alerted _someone_. Dumbledore, or even Snape himself. But for some reason, he was resolute to deal with this by himself. Yes, the fact that a good portion of the wizarding population already thought he was nuts was part of it, but there was something about the whole deal… It felt _personal_. As if Voldemort would win… s _omething_ , if Harry were to talk about this with anyone.

And Harry would certainly feel like he was the one losing, if he were to admit that the Dark Lord had such a power over him, that he could curse him with an image of his younger self. An image that he couldn’t get rid of, never mind how many time he tried to vanish it. Maybe he should  _actually_ hit the library again before going down to the dungeons. Maybe he would finally find a good banishment spell...

Anyway, he doubted that he would have the same luck during tonight’s lesson. Riddle was _everywhere_ , a constant present at his side and in his thoughts. There would be much more memories of him for Snape to find.

But he was still failing at the whole Occlumency thing. Emptying his mind seemed like an impossible task when he had so many things to think about, like classes, Dumbledore's Army, whether Cho Chang liked him for his personality or because of some weird Cedric related thing and, oh, he almost forgot, _Voldemort_. Unless he was on a broom, that is. Up in the air, everything tended to disappear, all his worries and fear would get sucked out of him by the wind, leaving behind only the joy that came with flying, the rush of the match beneath him, the simple goal of finding the Snitch…

So emptying his mind _was_ possible. Just… not when he tried to practice it before sleeping, and certainly not when Severus Snape was looming over him, pointing his wand at his chest. Not when there were things he had to purposely _not_ think about.

Maybe... Maybe emptying his mind wasn't the key, he thought suddenly as he was picking up a book on poltergeist from one of the library shelf. Maybe _filling_ it was!

Filling it with a single thought. Something easy to visualize. 

_I have to give him something else to focus on._

Like the Department of Mysteries.

Among the dreams Harry had had those last months, this had been the most recurring one. He could picture it so easily now, the exact color of the tiles, the way light refracted upon them... The glint of it on the handle of the door at the end of the corridor. He could conjure it all in his mind eye at a single thought. 

But having a maybe-solution wasn't enough to calm his anxiety as the prospect of another hour of Snape going through his head. What if it didn't work? it was an entirely untested technique, after all. Not even a technique. Just an idea. 

It _could_ work. He'd been called obsessive a few time. Was aware that once he had an idea in his head, it was hard for him to let go. It had proven to be a strength when it came to uncover mysteries and cause evil plots to fail, but would it be enough to stop an accomplished Legilimens? 

“I don’t suppose you can curse Snape too?” he said to Riddle as he dropped his bag and the pile of mildly promising books he’d found on one of the most secluded tables.

Riddle arched one of his perfect eyebrows…

And disappeared.

Harry gaped at the empty spot the vision had occupied.

“I was joking!”

He didn’t even really believe Riddle was responsible for what had happened to Umbridge!

“Fuck.” He hastily put back in the furniture he had started taking out of his bag. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ …”

Never mind the books he had taken out of the shelves (Would Pince know it was him? Probably? Did he care? A bit. But what was one detention more…) As much as the concept pleased him, he had to stop Riddle from permanently maiming his potion teacher.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone was wondering why there was a weirdly underlined part in the previous chapter, well, i don't know why it was either, but i fixed it :D  
> also someone could have told me about the "department of ministry". y'all are bad readers lmao.  
> (also omg "He swallowed Hermione" in the first chapter. I wrote accidental vore AND NO ONE TOLD ME)

 

 

Harry caught up with Riddle as he was stalking down the hallway leading to the Potion Master’s office. He still wasn’t sure how the vision operated, if he was always there but sometimes invisible even to Harry himself, or if he was able to apparate away. The fact that he wasn’t in the office yet, throttling Snape with his invisible hands, seemed to indicate that the former option was the right one, though.

Harry would have preferred the later, to be honest. Who was to say that Riddle wasn’t looking at him when he thought he was gone?

But he didn’t had the time to think about that – or, Merlin, any of the implications. Now he had to stop Riddle from doing whatever he was about to do.

"Riddle!" Harry whispered furiously - after making sure no one was around to hear him talk to thin air - approaching the vision carefully, as one would do a wild animal. "Whatever you're about to do..."

Raising his eyebrows and smiling in a way that clearly meant "now what are you going to do about _that_?", Riddle placed his hand on the door… And disappeared again.

He had to walk, yes, but who was to say he couldn't walk through doors?

“ _Fuck_.”

_What do I do? What do I do I can't let him... Blow Snape up or something like that!_

He had to... No he couldn't warn Snape... How would he even explain that a young Dark Lord that only Harry could see had malicious intent toward him? He would think him mad or, even worse, would think Voldemort had successfully entered his brain and scrambled it.

He wouldn't be that far from the truth.

He could just... Maybe start by knocking? See if Riddle was really up to something inside. Interrupt him if he was. And if not... Well he would come up with something.

_Alright, here goes nothing._

Snape opened the door, for once not looking at him with hatred or contempt but with genuine surprise. This was a pleasant change, if Harry were to be honest. Sadly it didn’t last, and the Potion Master’s trademark sneer was back into place in a second, as if it had never left.

“What are you doing here, Potter? Your lesson is after diner, not before. Or have you lost any concept of time along with your capacity to think rationally. Not that I believe you ever possessed that one but...”

As Snape kept on insulting his intelligence, Harry raked his mind for an excuse.

“It’s about tonight’s lesson, actually...”

“Do. Not. Interrupt me, Potter, I thought that I had made myself clear about that years ago. What about it?”

To Harry’s dismay, Riddle chose this moment to reappear. Right next to him. From the corner of his eyes, he saw him smiling smugly at his own trick, before slipping into Snape’s office, the smirk on his lips looking like a bad omen.

“I was thinking… Maybe we should… Reschedule it?”

“And why would I do such a thing?”

“Erm, well… I’m not feeling too well… Sir. I think maybe I should visit Madam Pomf….”

“The Dark Lord won’t refrain to try and invade your mind just because you have a cold, Potter. I still fail to see why I should.”

Behind Snape, Riddle was looking very interested as he examined a little vial full of liquid clear as water. With trepidation, Harry realized it was the very same vial Snape had threatened him with the year before, when the Potion Master had thought he was the one raiding his supplies.

Veritaserum.

_No, don’t._

Snape slammed his hand on the door-jamb, blocking Harry’s view of his private quarters, and eyed him suspiciously.

“What do you really want, Potter?”

“I told you – Sir – I’m just not feeling well...”

“I don’t believe you. You look just fine to me. Exuding arrogance and laziness just as usual. And sadly those aren’t symptoms of any fatal disease.”

“Then why don’t you look into my mind for the truth then?” Harry snapped.

There was a brief moment of silence, then Snape said through his teeth.

“You will be there right after dinner, Potter, no excuses. And I don’t want to ever see you again at my door unless I have summoned you, is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, _Sir_.”

Without another word, Snape slammed the door in his face, leaving Harry alone in the hallway, at lost for what to do. Had Riddle…?

“Shit!” He exclaimed, startled, as the vision reappeared at his side, having probably exited the room just before Snape had closed the door. “Did you…?”

Could he even move things around? Or had this been just a show, another trick to mess with Harry’s mind? Harry hadn’t see him lift the vial from the shelf it was on - or open it, just examining it - before Snape had blocked his view. And yes he could sit on things, but that could be just an illusion. Harry had never seen him _move_ things...

_Fingers threading through Harry’s hair._

There was a sudden lump in his throat as he remembered the feel of it. This had been real. Riddle had touched him, and he had felt it like he could feel any real person.

“Did you do something?”

Riddle smiled enigmatically and gestured upward, where dinner was about to begin in the Great Hall.

Harry sighed heavily.

“Merlin, you’re such a piece of work.”

 

* * *

 

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“What?” Harry asked absentmindedly, craning his neck to see the professors's table. Snape hadn't come up, but Umbridge had come down. She hasn't been there at lunch, probably nursing both her pride and her hand. Harry had heard she'd convoked several student to her office during the day, but hadn't found out anything.

“That thing you said you needed to check for…” She looked around to make sure no one was listening in that shouldn’t know about their clandestine activities and whispered. “For the next meeting.”

“Oh. Right. Yes, I did.”

Hermione looked dubious, probably because of the lack of conviction in Harry’s voice. He felt guilty then. he’d been lying a lot to her lately, and to Ron. But there wasn’t just guilt...

The words on his hand jumped to the forefront of his mind once more.

_I must not tell lies._

Harry clenched his teeth, looking down at his still full plate. 

How dare she?! How dare she take this place in his thoughts?! What he told people was his own business, not hers, who had told more lies in her short teaching career than Harry had probably told in his entire life! She had no right pretending to be a moral guide, when she had no moral of her own to begin with!

Oh, how he hated her. And how he wanted to do the same thing that Riddle – or any student present in the Great hall that morning, he still wasn’t sure after all – had done to her, a thousandfold. He daydreamed about it sometimes, what kind of revenge he would exert on Dolores Umbridge.

He would make sure that she would never dare meddle again with his school. He would hex her, curse her, Crucio her, sink fangs into her quasi nonexistent throat and tear it out…

Harry's locket was a miniature furnace against his heart, drinking in his anger in the strange way it always did.

Strange but reassuring. A constant but welcome companion.

This time, all the glasses at the professors table exploded.

Harry looked up, all thoughts of vengeance gone from his mind, as if they had never existed in the first place.

Riddle was standing in the space between the Gryffindor table and the Ravenclaws’, looking like he’d run a marathon, his chest heaving and his lips parting as he exuded silent gasps. Umbridge was shouting her lungs out, but once more, there was no clear suspect. All students were looking at the end of the Hall, stunned by the display. No one was laughing. No wands were raised.

Harry felt dizzy, suddenly, a similar feeling that the one he got when the Dursleys would refuse to feed him as a punishment for his bouts of “freakishness”. Maybe he ought to eat something. He hadn’t touched his dinner yet...

But that blast of magic! He had felt it, like it had come from himself! There was no doubt there, it had felt exactly like the time he had inflated his Aunt Marge.

So then what was up with Riddle? The vision had never behaved like that…

"I will get to the bottom of this!" Umbridge was screaming, like a little girl throwing a tantrum. "The culprit would be severely punished!" She took a deep breath and seemed to calm down a bit. Then her disgustingly sweet, fake smile reappeared, and she added: "But if anyone were to chose to come forward with information..."

She didn't say what the informers would gain, but somehow it didn't sound much better than what she reserved to the culprit. And on those ominous words, she straightened her wine stained pink cardigan and left the Great Hall.

After a few seconds of tense silence, conversations started again, everyone wanting to comment the event, asking their friends for their opinions, giving their theories to whoever was willing to listen.

“What do you think that was?” Hermione asked him anxiously. “That couldn’t have been a student! She would have spotted anyone waving her wand! Even before this morning, she hates to see us use them...”

“I don’t know, Hermione,” he said. “Maybe...”

But he didn’t had any satisfying answer to give her, and he was distracted from his search for one by a distracting sensation against his chest.

His locket had went cold.

It wasn’t a weird phenomenon. The medallion, he had discovered, was somehow connected to his emotions. This was, he theorized, the aftershock of him using wandless magic.

Knowing this didn’t help that he felt like he needed to take it out, though. To check if it was unharmed, or to warm it in his hands, maybe. Would that make any difference since it was already against his skin?

But he was reluctant to expose it to other people’s sight. Had been since he’d put his hands on it, while they were passing it around to try and open it, back during last summer. The locket was _his_ , in a way that few things were. His wands, his broom, Hedwig… Those were his most precious belonging – though some days it was like he belonged to the owl rather than the other way around, with the way she behaved – and now the locket. He would never give up any of them.

Riddle walked back to the table, looking as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t been busy imitating a fish out of water the moment before. With a flourish of his Slytherin robes, he straddled the bench and resumed staring at Harry.

Cho Chang choose this moment to walk by the Gryffindor table, smiling at Harry when their gaze met.

“Just a second”, she said to her Ravenclaw friend, a blond girl Harry had never bothered remembering the name of. “Did you saw that?” she said, gesturing at the professors’s table, where McGonagall was gesturing with her wand, cleaning up the mess, a puzzled expression on her severe face.

“I think everyone saw that, it was pretty difficult to miss”, Harry replied with a nervous laugh.

“Well, _we_ ,” she gestured at her table, “think there’s a new poltergeist in the castle. The seventh years are talking about inviting it in some sort of circle, so that it should show itself. Though they'll have to do this in the dormitories, you know, because of the decree... But it’s pretty exciting!”

“You don’t say...”

“Anyway, I got to go...” Cho said, catching her friend’s eyes and noticing her impatient expression. “See you at the next meeting, Harry.”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then walked away with a skip in her step.

The next moment she was tripping on seemingly nothing, a rare show of clumsiness for the usually graceful seeker. Luckily she caught herself to her friend’s arm, but she was blushing furiously as she made her way to her own table. Harry turned to where Riddle had been sitting at his side before the incident. He was still there, looking more interested than ever by Harry’s face. There was no smirk on his face, just an intense air of concentration, like he was examining a specimen previously unknown to man.

“Did you do that?” Harry whispered as lowly as he could.

It was driving him mad that he still had no proof of Riddle’s implication in the morning’s events, only his reactions to Harry’s accusations to go with. And he could be just playing him. Smiling in delight when he'd first started to suspect him, disappearing at his suggestion to hex Snape, his weird display during Harry's bout of wandless magic... 

The vision took on an innocent expression that Harry knew was fake. It was just to perfect to be true. Either he'd been the one to do it, or he wanted Harry to think he was, and both were equally bad.

“Stop fucking with people,” he said, just in case.

 _Stop fucking with me_ , he thought.

“Did you said something?” Hermione asked.

“No,” Harry replied firmly. Then he looked around, noticing for the first time that something was missing. Or rather _someone._ “Where’s Ron anyway?”

“Probably still in the shower. Have you seen the weather outside? He looked like a drowned rat when he came in. And he had a black eye, too. I think he tried to enchant a quaffle so it would fire at the goals, but he must have done something wrong because it looked like the quaffle tried to fire at _him_ instead.”

Harry emitted a commiserating sound, before diving into his diner without enthusiasm. 

He _really_ wasn't looking forward the next hour of his life.

 

* * *

 

“I hate looking at you, do you know that?” Snape said suddenly.

The Potion Master hadn't said a word as Harry had came into his office, and had stayed silent until Harry had started squirming under his dark stare. He never felt comfortable in Snape's presence, but this was really unnerving. He'd been about to say something, when the man had uttered the most gratuitously hostile comment to ever come out of his mouth, and that was saying something, given their history.

"I... I'm sorry, but  _what_?"

“Not because of who you are, but because of your eyes. On _that_ face.”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Harry asked, offended. His face he could somewhat understand. Snape hated his father, and everyone kept on telling Harry how much they looked alike. But his _eyes_...?

“They are Lily's...” Snape then slammed a hand over his mouth, horror filling his eyes. Said eyes then snapped toward the right... To the shelf Riddle had been examining earlier.

The veritaserum vial was half empty.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo guess who's back in town - literally. i was out of town those last two days or believe me, that bitch would have been out already if i had been home.  
> anyway, enjoy (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

 

 

Harry saw Snape’s hand move for his wand, but he was quicker, maybe more alert. He wasn’t the one drugged with a mind altering potion, after all.

“ _Experliarmus!_ ”

Snape wand flew out of his hand and into Harry's extended one. 

Tom Riddle appeared, then, sitting in the armchair behind Snape's deck with his feet thrown up on it and his hands behind his head as if he'd been lounging there the whole time, and watched the consequences of his master plan unfold.

"Give me back my wand, Potter!"

"No," Harry retorted, pointing both his wand and Snape's at the man. "First you're going to tell me..."

Snape's eyes went from Harry to the two wands in his hand to the door and, seemingly deciding that he would have a better chance with the later, lunged for it.

_I can't let him go! I have to..._

Well, in for a knut, in for a galleon.

“ _Incarcerous!_ ”

Dark ropes erupted from Harry’s wand, and he twisted his grip on it until Snape was effectively tied up to the chair Riddle obligingly placed behind him, proving once and for all that the fucker was perfectly capable of moving objects if he wanted to and had been holding on just to mess with Harry.

“HOW DARE YOU POTTER I WILL HAVE YOU EXPEL-”

“Would you, really?” Harry cut him off, silencing him with a surprising ease – that was maybe due to the potion. Maybe it didn’t just force Snape to talk, but also to listen to what was asked to him. “Force me out of the only place on earth where Voldemort can’t touch me? Because I’m telling you there’s no way I’m going back to my aunt’s house if I’m expelled. No, I’d rather have the Dark Lord have me…” Harry pointedly didn’t look at Riddle as he said that. “So, would you? Be the cause of my murder?”

“No I would not,” Snape responded with a dead voice. "Though sometimes I wish I could."

“Right. Now... You once told me that only a few drops would be necessary... What will half a bottle do?"

"Prolong the effects, make it so even I, who knows them and has superior Occlumency skill, will not be able to resist."

"That's all? No nasty secondary effects?"

"That is all."

"Alright," harry said, pocketing Snape's wand and holding his wand in a vaguely menacing way. Not that he needed it for Snape to talk, but he liked the idea. "So now tell me: why does it matter to you if I have my mother’s eyes?”

Snape's face contorted in a painful expression, as if it physically pained him to answer Harry.

“Because, Lily… We met even before going to school. She was my friend and I… I betrayed her. I _loved_ her and I betrayed her!”

Harry felt the world tilt on its axis, just a tiny bit, but enough to make him feel nauseous. Snape. Had loved his mother. First of all, yikes. Second of all…

“You became a Death Eater,” Harry said.

It wasn’t really a question, so Snape stayed silent.

"She was a muggle born and you... You joined the ranks of people who despise her kind."

"Not her," Snape said, unprompted. "Never her. She was brilliant. She was beautiful and kind..."

"Oh, do shut up! If you had any respect for her, you wouldn't even dare say her name!" Harry shouted. "You disgust me. You didn't even had the excuse of not knowing muggles or muggleborns. You knew they have the potential to be as "brilliant" as any others! And yet you still became a Death Eater. What did you think would happen to her if you'd won back then?"

"I would have protected her."

Harry laughed, a humorless laugh that made even Snape flinch.

"Great job you did there."

Snape looked as if he wanted to throw something at Harry. Well, even more than usual.

So that answered a few questions... Now on to the next one.

“What’s in the Department of Mysteries?”

He had asked the same question during their first lesson, when he had realized what the place he’d been visiting in his dreams was. Snape of course had refused to answer. But if it was important enough that the Order was patrolling those hallways, important enough that Voldemort himself dreamt about it with such regularity, then Harry needed to know.

Riddle came to stand next to Harry, looking intrigued. Didn't he knew about it? For the first time it hit Harry that maybe he wasn't just an image sent to haunt him, an extension of the Dark Lord's will. Maybe he was just like the Tom Riddle he had encountered before.

A memory.

“A prophecy,” Snape said in the same dead voice he had started responding to Harry’s inquiries. The emotion he had shown while talking of his mother was entirely gone, as if it had never been there. “About you and the Dark Lord…”

Harry looked at Riddle, who looked at him with what must have been a perfect mirror of his own expression. A _prophecy_? About _them_? Did they really even needed that at this point?

It seemed like there was never a shortage of new things to tie Harry to the Dark Lord, and it was starting to be, well, a bit _too much_.

“What does it say?” Harry asked through the sudden lump in his throat.

At his side, Riddle leaned forward, as if he would miss what Snape would say next if he wasn’t careful. His eyes were open wide and his nostrils flaring, avidity shining in his eyes.

Harry focused back on Snape, who frowned in confusion at his distraction.

“That _you_ could defeat the Dark Lord. That _you_ would have a power that the Dark Lord does not. That he would mark you as his equal…"

The way Snape sounded particularly bitter as he said this did not escape Harry, though he was much more concerned by what exactly he was saying. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Riddle watch him with the same intense concentration as he had had earlier at dinner, right after Cho had tripped. When their eyes met though, he looked back at Snape, frowning as if displeased - which was understandable, given the information he'd just heard.

 _That's right_ , Harry thought not without vindication, _I'll be the one who destroys you._

"And how to find you," Snape added, claiming back Harry's attention, his voice faltering once again, and there it was, the same guilt he had had when he’d said he had betrayed Harry’s mother.

“You told him,” he realized even as he said the words. “You knew about that prophecy. And you... you told him.”

"Yes."

A feeling Harry was now too well acquainted with reared up his ugly head, twisting his mouth into a snarl, coiling into his muscles and making its home into the pit of his stomach. It was the same all encompassing rage he'd felt when he had thought Sirius had betrayed his parent. That he had felt when he'd been told Wormtail had really been the one to sell them. Now it turned out that Pettigrew would never had to do it in the first place if Snape hadn't told Voldemort that _Harry_ would have this mysterious power... _A power that has yet to reveal itself_ , he noted bitterly, _because so far I've only managed to barely survive_...

Maybe Voldemort had been the one to wield the wand, but _Snape_ had had been the one who had told him he needed to.

Had been the one to destroy his life.

But he had to ignore that rage. Just for a little bit. Just for a little while longer. First he had questions.

“Why does Voldemort needs the prophecy if he’s known about it all along?” he asked, slowly making his way around the bound man, watching him crane his neck in order to follow his movement with a a barely there hint of anxiety in his eyes. Good. Now Snape knew what it felt like to be at the mercy of someone while all his secrets were uncovered. 

“He’s never heard it in its entirety.”

"Why? You got cold feet when you realized it was talking about murdering a baby?"

"I only heard the first part." Harry emitted a falsely disappointed sound. _You're really that worthless, uh?_  "Dumbledore... Aberforth Dumbledore. He caught me eavesdropping before I could hear the end of it."

_Aberforth? Oh, the goat brother!_

Harry shook his head to dislodge the disturbing images that idea brought to his brain.

“Tell me why Dumbledore trusts you,” he spat.

"I changed my ways... I saw the Dark Lord for what he really was, an homicidal, maniacal..."

“It was because of my mom, right?” Harry cut him off impatiently. "I heard him say once you'd joined our side just before Voldemort's fall. You went to Dumbledore because you knew. You knew he was coming for us..."

"I begged the Dark Lord to spare her life when I understood it was her he was going after. And after... She didn't had to die... But because of me... because of me she did. And my guilt… I told him I wanted to atone. And I do…. I truly do. I swore to protect you…" His voice filled with hatred and disgust. All of it directed at Harry - or maybe at the man he so much looked like. "But I won't be forced to act as if you aren't as despicable as…”

Harry punched Snape in the nose.

Then he caught him by the collar, hauling him as far up as the ropes still binding Snape allowed him. Blood was running from his nose, and Harry felt intense satisfaction at the sight. Still he felt like it wasn't enough.

“I hope you understand, sir," he said softly. "That that’s not good enough for me. Especially when you keep on insulting me.”

Over Snape’s shoulder, Harry caught Tom Riddle’s dark eyes. His silent companion had moved behind the Potion Master, but the man wasn’t the focus of his attention any more. Harry was.

As they looked at each other, Harry's anger seemed to crystallize inside of him, filling all the available space with it's sharp edges until it was just _too much_ , too loud, the double beat of his heart and his locket echoing in his ears, submerging any thought about what was right and wrong, only what _he,_ and the man he held at wandpoint, deserved. His voice was cold as ice when he put the tip of his wand under Snape’s right eye and said:

“ _Crucio_.”

He'd been on the receiving hand of this curse once. Eight months ago, in the cemetery where the Dark Lord had found his body again. So he knew first hand what it did, how agonizing the pain was, as if there was a fire inside of him, burning him alive, setting every nerve alight in its wake. He'd wished for death, then, if only to make the pain stop, and that's why he wanted Snape to feel like today. He wanted him to feel like he belonged in the ground, that he'd better be dead. Dead like Harry's parents. Dead like the life he could have had with them. 

But it wasn't Snape's first round at it either, that much was clear. And he man had a remarkable force of will even weakened by veritaserum. So to Harry's disappointment, he didn't start screaming immediately but clenched his teeth, his whole body trembling, his neck straining as he threw his head back... Right into Riddle's hands.

Long fingers grazed Snape's temples, and he slumped in his chair, as if something vital had been taken from him.

And then he broke. And screamed. And screamed and screamed. 

It was just Harry's luck that the Potion Master had chosen the dungeons to establish his quarters, really. Who would hear him scream down there?

When Harry finally lowered his wand, he was panting as if he'd been the one getting tortured. Except there was no ache in his body, just a pleasantly tingling feeling. 

The locket against his skin had a warmth Harry had learned to associate with contentment, with happiness. He put his hand over it and through his shirt, felt the same heartbeat from earlier. He liked feeling the rhythm of it. It was like having a pet curling against him. Comforting.

Looking up past the heaving form of Snape, Harry saw Riddle, still standing being the chair. The vision - memory, hallucination - beamed at him, like a proud father watching his son soaring through the sky on his first broom, or so Harry imagined.

He raised his wand again, and posed, considering his next move, though only in the same detached way he'd considered using the cruciatus. Like he was playing chess against a less skilled opponent, pondering which one of his powerful pieces would take the remaining king.

It was Riddle’s hand on his shoulder that did it – though Merlin knew it shouldn’t had! some part of Harry recognized distantly - the vision had orchestrated all this, but now something was telling him it hadn’t be just to fuck with Harry, but to help him. In a cruel, twisted way maybe, but it didn’t change the fact that, finally, he had gotten some answers.

Now it was Snape’s turn to be in the dark.

“ _Obliviate_.”

It was surprisingly easy, as if Harry had done this his whole life. Just like casting the cruciatus had been. As simple as breathing.

It was too bad that he would forget the torment he had lived at Harry's hand, but this couldn't get out. Still, he hoped that, under the thick blanket of the memory charm, some part of him would know, and fear his wrath.

Harry vanished the ropes he had conjured, and put Snape's wand back into his pocket. The Potion Master's gaze was blank, unfocused, his mouth slightly open. He would come back to his senses in a few moments. Time to go. 

"I'll see you for our next lesson, professor."

 

* * *

 

 

Harry wasn't sure exactly how he made it to his bed. The way up to the Gryffindor tower was walked in a stunned daze, though he must have been alert enough to realize he didn't want to deal with anyone while in that state, because he had to take off his invisibility cloak before getting into bed. 

Stripping up quickly to his underwear, not even minding that he had a silent spectator, Harry got into bed, for once closing the drapes, isolating himself from the rest of the dormitory. 

Riddle was sitting at the foot of his bed, legs crossed and back straight, looking impassible, as if nothing that had happened tonight had any importance to him, or to the man that he would be now, was he not an image of a faraway past.

But just like the one that had re-opened the Chamber of Secrets had seemed obsessed with learning about Harry, this Riddle had looked surprised to hear about the prophecy, and fascinated by its content.

“What are you, really?” Harry asked him, not expecting an answer and not getting any.

Was there another diary presently in possession of a student, his life force being drained away as Ginny's had been? But then why was he sticking with Harry, instead of getting up to - truly - evil schemes? Why couldn't he talk? Why wasn't he visible to anyone else? 

Harry sighed, feeling suddenly empty. Of both energy and feelings. Exhausted like after a particularly intense quidditch match. Curling up around the only thing he had left of his father, his cloak, he pressed his locket to his lips and closed his eyes as tightly as he could.

_I'll be the one to do them justice._

That's what the prophecy had said, and it wouldn't repair the damages it had caused in the first place, but it was still a comforting thought.

He fell asleep quickly, dreaming of fingers carding through his hair, and a velvet like voice, saying his name, again and again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> baby steps, harry, but i believe in you. one day you'll put 2 and 2 together, i know it! :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck proof reading i'm tired

 

 

Harry woke up with a start, heart beating fast and wand in his hand, aiming at an invisible enemy. 

His night had been dreams after nightmares after twisted memories. Little Hangleton's cemetery. A cove in the Dark Forest, filled with spiderwebs and acromentulas. The Chamber of Secret and the corpse of a little girl. The door to the Department of Mysteries. A botched potion, spilling from a solid gold cauldron and flooding the entire school with a blood red liquid. His mother screaming... 

As the remnant of those dreams slipped away from his mind, the event of the previous day came back to take their place. 

Maybe the dreams were better, after all.

Had he really used the cruciatus curse on Snape? That didn’t seem right.

Sure he still thought that Snape deserved to be punished for what he’d done… but the _cruciatus_? How could he have thought this was the right thing to do? After having felt first hand what it did. After seeing the effects of prolonged usage on Neville’s parents...

And here he’d been worrying that the connection between him and Voldemort meant that there was something evil inside of him. Well now he knew for sure. There was something  _wrong_  with him, and it didn’t even had anything to do with the Dark Lord!

Oh, sure, Voldemort had been there, or some version of him, but he hadn't been in Harry's head at the time. And yes, he'd been the one to put veritaserum in whatever Snape had been drinking, but Harry had been the one who had let his anger and pain sway his moral compass so badly he'd used one of the Unforgivables...

He swallowed back the nausea that was menacing to overtake him and, opening the curtains of his bed, was instantly caught by the sight of none other than Tom Riddle. His tall frame – even at sixteen, you could already guess the lines of the man he would become half a century later, though they still came out as elegant and sophisticated rather than distorted and monstrous - was cutting a dark shadow against the window he was looking through, hands in his pockets as he probably pondered over world domination, or maybe the mating habits of the giant squid, down in the lake that spread under his eyes. Harry wondered for the hundredth time what the hell he was doing during the night. No wonder he’d jumped on the occasion of drugging Snape, with how boring his existence most likely was...

Soft snoring around them told Harry that, for once, he was the first one to rise. It had became a rare occurrence lately. Well, except when he didn’t slept at all…

That meant he could take all his time in the shower.

His muscles were aching, as if he’d spent all the day before on his broom. Hot water seemed just about perfect right now.

Harry got up with a heavy sigh, earning himself a quick glance for Riddle. But the lake must have been more interesting than Harry's morning routine, because he went immediately back to ignoring him.

Ron indeed had a black eye, Harry remarked as he passed his best friend’s bed and he winced in sympathy at the sight, but to be perfectly honest, would have given anything to have had Ron’s evening, instead of the one he had spent. Merlin, he missed Quidditch. He missed being part of the team. Missed his broom. Missed the rush that went with soaring through the air at high speed.

_If there's a witch that deserves to be burnt..._ he thought while he undressed.

He hesitated a few seconds before taking off his locket. During the sixth month he had had it, he’d only taken it off while showering. He didn’t liked it but it was just easier. So that’s what he did this morning too. 

But it was harder than usual.

 

* * *

 

_I knew I shouldn't have taken it off._

Riddle had apparently decided that messing with Harry was actually more interesting than the Great Lake and had come out of the dormitory and into the bathroom where he'd found Harry's locket - _what was he even searching for? It was hidden under my clothes!_ He was fiddling with it, twirling the chain between his fingers... 

“That’s mine," Harry said abruptly. "Give it back.”

Riddle looked up at Harry, the amused look on his handsome features clear enough even without glasses. Then he seemed to realize Harry’s state of undress, and the look of amusement changed into…  _Something else,_  as his eyes racked over Harry’s naked torso.

_Is he judging me or trying to find the best spot to stab me?_

Harry self consciously crossed his arms in front of him, then uncrossed them, feeling like showing anything less than absolute confidence in front of the future - or _something_ \- Dark Lord would be like forfeiting a duel.

He took a step forward, holding out a hand to take back his belonging, but Riddle was quicker than him - for some reason. Wasn't Harry supposed to have seeker's reflexes? Merlin he needed to get a grip, or more sleep. Uninterrupted, dreamless sleep - and taller. He hold it over Harry's head. Just out of reach.

The fucker.

“Give it back, Tom,” Harry said menacingly.

He registered too late that he had used Riddle’s first name, and that for the first time since he’d appeared. Well, that version of him, anyway. He’d called the Tom that had came out of the diary by his first name, when he’d been naive enough to think that this boy from the past only wanted to help. Now, whenever he would think about that, he would feel the distant but still sharp sting of betrayal he’d felt when he had realized he’d been played, that the oh so helpful echo was actually the one who’d been attacking muggleborns, the one who was draining his best friend’s little sister’s life force, the one who would grow up to become Lord Voldemort.

So now he refused to use that name when addressing Riddle, because he refused to mistake him for a friend again. He had to stay on guard.

It seemed to please him even more than Harry’s futile attempts at getting his locket back. His smile widened, and he dangled the locket a bit lower. And harry missed it. Again. Damn, Oliver and Angelina would both have his hide if they had witnessed this.

“Oh, yeah, very mature,” he said, because being angry at Riddle was easier than admitting how sluggish his reflexes seemed to have become.

And he seemed to take it as a challenge, because all around them, taps and shower heads turned on. The noise of pouring water echoed loud against the tiled walls, the room filed with unnaturally thick steam, until Harry was unable to see farther that a few feet ahead.

Riddle disappeared into it, as efficiently as he usually did on his own. 

“Riddle! Give it back!”

There was the noise of a finger trailing over a wet surface, making Harry jump in surprise. He followed the noise to one of the bathroom's mirrors and squinted at it.

**_"Or what?"_ **

"I..."

Harry was spared from having to find something to menace what was basically a magical phenomenon by Riddle reappearing just behind him, so close that he could feel his cool breath on the heated skin of his neck. 

Harry froze. His locket was dangling from Riddle's fist, right in front of him. He reached for it, but forced himself to still his hand a few inches from Riddle's. 

"Please, give it back," he said softly, feeling that getting angrier or trying to take it by force would be as futile as convincing his uncle to 

The locket disappeared from his sight for a brief moment, and returned with it's clasp opened, each extremity of the chain held between Riddle's fingers in either side of Harry.

The locket's chain was long enough that there was no need to open it in order to get it around one's neck, so why...

Riddle's hands were cold, and a shiver went through Harry's whole body when they brushed against his skin as he fastened the chain closed.

“What… Harry? Are you trying to turn this place into a sauna?”

Ron's voice was like a cold shower, dissipating the clouds that seemed to have taken hold inside Harry's head just like the thick, probably magical steam had filled the room. He blinked owlishly at his friend, who handed him his glasses with a concerned glance. 

"Are you alright?"

Harry nodded, mumbling something about busted plumbing, turning away to cover himself hastily before Ron could notice the quite ostentatious piece of jewelry he was wearing. 

His locket was back against his heart, their wild beating echoing each other once more, and that was all that mattered.

He would never take it off again.

 

* * *

 

 

Now he had a choice to make: tell Ron and Hermione about what Snape had confessed, or keep it a secret.

He _wanted_ to tell them about the prophecy. They’d been wondering for months what that secret weapon Voldemort was after was, and the excitation of finally knowing hadn’t been totally erased by the circumstances in which Harry had came across the information. There was also the equal measure of hope and fear he felt about knowing he had the power to defeat the Dark Lord. Hope because, well, that meant that Voldemort could be defeated. And fear because, well, it was a huge responsibility. And Harry would have felt much better about it if he knew that Ron and Hermione would be a hundred per cent behind him for that.

But he couldn’t tell them  _how_  he’d obtained this information, could he? Ron, maybe, would understand. But Hermione would be horrified, he just knew it. She could be ruthless at times but what Harry had done… And neither of them would ever see him the same way.

And he couldn’t afford that. He needed them too much.

“I have something to tell you two,” he told them as they were sitting down for breakfast.

He gave them the quick version: there was a prophecy about him and Voldemort, but they - the Dark Lord, Snape and Harry himself - only knew half of it. Harry was the one who would kill Voldemort. Snape had been the one to sic Voldemort on Harry.

He left off the part where Snape had been in love with his mother. It was... not really relevant. And he didn't particularly want to think about it, much less debate the subject.

"That bastard!" Ron exclaimed when Harry was done. "And all those years we've been told to trust him..." 

"I'm sure Dumbledore has his reason," Hermione said, though even she didn't seemed convinced this time. “But how did you learn all that, Harry?” 

“Does it matter?”

“ _Yes_ , it matters! You could have been lied to! Because I doubt  _Snape_  told you all that himself!”

“I haven’t been lied to,” he said firmly. That, for once, was something he could be sure of. “I…” Then the answer presented itself to him. A flash of memory, as if the image had been projected directly to his brain… A stone basin, with silver threads swirling in it.  _Ah, thank you._ It had been a while since his locket hadn’t helped him that way. It was the most useful of its magical properties, but hell if Harry knew the logic behind its interventions. “I saw it in his pensieve,” he hanged his head low, pretending to be ashamed of himself. “He left it unprotected last night when… Well I guess he went to the infirmary? He didn’t look like he was feeling well, and he left very suddenly, not even asking me to leave.”

“So you just looked?!”

“Come on, Hermione,” Ron intervened. “Snape’s been looking at Harry’s memories for weeks! And he was deliberately hiding those from him! I would have wanted to know too!” He turned to Harry. “So what d’you reckon that secret power of yours is?”

They spent the rest of breakfast exchanging theories about Harry's magical abilities. They quickly became more and more outlandish, Harry using what little knowledge he had of those super hero comics Dudley sometimes read - the only thing he actually _liked_  to read - and Ron outright quoting old wizarding tales, and for about half an hour, Harry felt as if things were somewhat back to normal. But then, as they stood up to go to class, he spotted Snape's empty seat, and it was like he'd swallowed a stone. A bit painful, and resting uncomfortably at the bottom of his stomach. He fell silent, leaving Ron and Hermione to walk a few steps in front of him. Ron threw him a concerned glance above his shoulder, but turned back forward when Hermione started harping him about his Herbology essay.

 

* * *

 

After that, Harry spent the day in a strange kind of torpor.

He fell asleep in divination, but then again he wasn’t the only one, what with all the herbs Trelawney burnt during that class. So he only really started to worry when he woke up five minutes before the end of Transfiguration, and eyed McGonagall warily, waiting for her to give him extra homework in punishment. But either she hadn't noticed, or she had decided to cut him some slack. When he looked down at the sheets of parchment on his desk, there were four full pages of neatly written notes, that he didn’t remember taking. So he thanked Hermione when they left the classroom, thinking she must have discretely duplicated her own and deposed them there. She frowned at him, probably an attempt at intimidating him in staying awake next time.

Riddle reappeared during lunch, popping out of thin air next to Harry while Ginny was telling him, Ron and Hermione that Snape hadn’t shown up to any of his classes that morning.

 

Leaning forward over the table, he propped his chin in his palm, his gaze resting mainly on Harry, though he could have swear he caught him looking at Ginny once or twice...

Did he knew about how she'd been tricked by the other him, the one that had come out of the diary? Could he feel some sort of connection between them? 

Harry threw him a dirty look.

"Stop that," he murmured under his breath.

Riddle responded with an unimpressed look.

_Or what?_

The words echoed in Harry's mind, an ominous whisper that chilled him to the bone. Or what, indeed. He had still no idea of what to do to get rid of him. Could he even hurt him physically? If he could touch him...

Oh, punching Voldemort in the face would be the highlight of his life.

 

* * *

 

The afternoon’s lessons went even worse than those of the morning, mostly because Harry didn’t had the luxury to sit down and nod off during them, since they were Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures. He almost cut his own fingers off while pruning a wiggenbush and released two of the porlocks they were studying by mistake. The creatures had run off into the Forbidden Forest, never to be seen again.

To make up it up to Hagrid, he'd stayed after the lesson to help him clean up. Which meant that Ron and Hermione had stayed too, and Ron had had to head directly to – this time officially scheduled – Quidditch practice, while Hermione left him on the first floor to go to the library. Harry was about to go take a nap, in his own bed this time, when Riddle’s handsome face suddenly morphed into a heinous snarl and he stepped in front of Harry, like some sort of over zealous guard dog.

Dumbledore approached the pair, the image of serenity in his long robes and with his placid expression, gliding through the halls full of students like as if impervious to their agitation, and the mixed bag of angry and hopeful looks he was getting from them.

It pissed off Harry. How could the Headmaster look so calm when his school was literally under attack, being destroyed one educational decree after another, by a madwoman in pink cardigans and head bows? They barely saw him at all nowadays. 

 

“Harry. Can I have a word?”

“Yeah, sure, Professor,” Harry replied, sidestepping Riddle to join the Headmaster in front of the window. “Is there a problem?”

“You’re not in any trouble, if that’s what you want to know, Harry. But yes, there’s a problem...”

He stopped in front of a nearby window and gestured at Harry to join him, before turning back to look at the lake, just like Riddle had done this morning.

_What's so interesting about it anyway. It's just water._

“I’m sure you’ve heard by now, that Professor Snape hasn’t been able to attend his classes today."

Of course the first time in the whole year he would seek him out would be to talk about  _Snape_.

"I've heard."

"He woke up feeling unlike himself. Something was clearly wrong. So he came to me. And through... 'Thought work', we realized... There is a gap in his memories.”

“Someone obliviated him?!” Harry exclaimed with a shaky voice.

Dumbledore looked somewhere above Harry’s left shoulder, where Riddle was standing, and Harry felt for the first time in a long time the hope he'd seen earlier in some of his classmates eyes when they'd looked at Dumbledore.

Could the headmaster see Riddle? Would he have answers to Harry's questions? Could he get rid of him?

But Dumbledore didn’t say anything about Harry’s invisible stalker, just frowned a bit, as if smelling something vaguely unpleasant. So Harry didn't say anything either. If Dumbledore couldn't even see him... He would just think it was Voldemort playing with his mind, just like Harry had thought until less than twenty-four hours ago - and he hadn't entirely ruled out the possibility.

"You were supposed to have a lesson with him yesterday. Did he gave you any reason for why he would report it?”

“No, sir. You know how it is, between Professor Snape and I… Not the exactly the best of friends…” He chuckled feebly. “He just told me to go away when I showed up for the lesson.”

Dumbledore simply nodded, as if he hadn't really expected to learn more from him.

"Every teacher… Well,  _almost_ every teacher is on high alert, but since beside Professor Snape’s memory there was nothing taken or damaged, we decided to keep this incident quiet. Now I want _you_ ,” and then he turned to Harry, though their eyes didn’t quite met. “To be careful, Harry. We don’t know for sure that it had something to do with you or Voldemort, but given Professor’s Snape’s unique position… Well, there isn’t many other options. All will be explored, of course, and we’ll get to the bottom of this affair, but in the meantime, I would ask that you abstain from any… Careless behaviour.”

He winked at that, but it lacked the mirth Dumbledore often showed when it came to Harry's habit of breaking school rules.

“Hum, Professor? Is it really reasonable that I continue my lesson with Sn… With Professor Snape? I mean, maybe we should take a break. Just until we know his mind is safe.”

Maybe that way Harry could finally have the time to practice on his own without the constant pressure of having to satisfy Snape’s impossible standards. The time to work on his idea. The time to maybe calm down so he wouldn’t just curse Snape again as soon as they were in a room alone together.

“That would indeed be wise," Dumbledore said pensively. "But in the meantime... Will you promise me that you’ll work on your own just as hard as you’re doing with your professor?”

“I will, sir.”

Which didn’t engaged him to much, actually. Snape wasn’t teaching him much. Just assaulting his mind again and again, as if Harry would develop sudden Occlumency skills through sheer annoyance.

"Good then. I will leave you for now. You should get some rest, my young friend. You look dreadful."

As soon as Dumbledore had turned the corner, Harry exhaled in relief, leaning against the nearest wall for support and resting his hand over his chest, feeling the wild double beat of his heart and locket.

He hadn’t been sure what Snape’s true memories had been replaced with. He just knew that the problem was dealt with. No he knew how exactly it had been dealt with.

“That’s not how memory charms are supposed to work, is it?” he muttered under his breath so that only his silent companion would hear him. “I may be rubbish as magical theory but I know that much. I didn’t… I just cast the spell. Didn’t think of a specific memory to erase, or of something to replace it. How did it worked?”

Riddle shrugged, avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“You know how, don’t you? You know what...” he stopped, taking out the Marauder’s Map in search of the nearest empty classroom. There was one two hallways down.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Here,” Harry said, slamming a parchment and a quill on a desk. “Now that we’ve established that you can touch stuff… Write.”

Riddle crossed his arms on his chest, looking merely amused by Harry’s imperious voice.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” he exclaimed, running his hands furiously through his already messy hair. “Just… Give me something! Anything! Like… What the bloody hell are you? Why are you following me around like that? _Why can’t you talk?_ ”

Riddle pensively ran a finger on his lower lip, then slowly made his way to the desk and picked up the quill, all the while never looking away from Harry's eyes.

“ _ **I need more,”**_ he wrote.

“More what? Are you… Are you draining some poor bloke somewhere? Like the other...”

Riddle’s head whipped up, and his dark eyes were reduced to slits as they meet Harry’s.

“The other?” he mouthed.

Realizing his mistake, Harry took a step back from the desk and said cautiously:

“I don’t think I should tell you that.”

Riddle’s jaw clenched and his eyes reduced to slits, and the first time since he’d appeared, he looked angry at Harry.

Picking up the quill, he wrote furiously, his usually neat and controlled writing distorted and large enough that Harry didn’t even had to lean forward to read it.

“ _ **TELL ME.”**_

“No.”

“ _ **I NEED TO KNOW.”**_

“And I need you to go back to whatever hole you crawled from and never show up again, but we can’t have everything we want, now can we?”, Harry retorted angrily.

Riddle looked as if he’d been smacked.

“What? You didn’t get the hint when I tried to vanish you? When I tried every spell I knew to make you disappear? When I refused to sleep for three nights straight because I was afraid you would murder me in my sleep?!”

And now he had the gall to look confused! As if he couldn’t understand why Harry would fear him, and wasn’t that just hilarious, the Dark Lord not getting that he was the stuff of nightmares – sometimes even literally, at least for Harry – when he’d consecrated his entire life becoming it!

So Harry laughed, a laughter that even to his own hears didn’t sounded right.

“And you’ve been acting all mysterious," he ranted on, pacing nervously and pointing an accusing finder at Riddle. "Having a grand old time fucking with my head, making me think I was going crazy… When you could have just picked up a quill and explained it all. But, oh, no, Lord Voldemort has to act all shady and creepy all the time, doesn't he? You fucking prick," Harry spat, jabbing the finger he'd been pointing in Riddle's chest and, to his great satisfaction, making him take half a step backward. "So no, I won’t tell shit to you, Tom Riddle. Fuck off.”

And he stormed off.

  


* * *

 

Hidden in a dark corner of a first floor hallway, Draco Malfoy watched Harry Potter exit an empty classroom, looking just as crossed as the day he’d been kicked out of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and making Draco very much glad he’d thought of staying out of sight. He had had enough of getting punched for the whole year already.

Now Draco wasn’t usually one for sneaking around. That was more Potter’s thing. But he’d heard shouting, and of course had recognized the voice. After all, he prided himself in having been the primary source of said shouting since Potter and him had started school, four and a half years ago.

And what he’d been shouting had been… Weird. Something about refusing to sleep because he was afraid someone would murder him? Had Potter and Weasley had another fall out? Something serious enough that the Weasel would  _murder_  Potter over it? That seemed unlikely. No, it must be someone else in his House – because who else could have access to Potter at night?

And then Potter had  _laughed_. The fucking loon. Someone was menacing him enough that he feared for his life and the bloke just… Laughed.

The rest of the conversation had been too muted for Draco to hear, but it didn’t mattered much, because then Potter was storming off. Alone.

Draco could have left, then. He had stuff to do, papers to write, people to bully. But his curiosity was too strong. He  _had_  to know who had been inside with Potter.

So he’d waited. And waited. But no one showed up.

Potter hadn’t closed the door all the way when he’d come out, so Draco only had to give it a slight push for it to open, and he did it with his wand held up at waist high, just in case whoever was inside had any negative feelings toward Slytherins. Or Malfoys. Or just Draco as a person.

_Some people just can’t appreciate the finest things in life._

After a few seconds and a nifty little spell he’d found in the Manor’s libray that was supposed to reveal any human being hidding in the immediate vicinity of the caster, he had to admit that he’d been cautious for nothing.

The classroom was empty.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woooooooooo surprise Draco!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i had to re-write this chapter like 3 time :D  
> but i think it's good now? eh at least it got us where i wanted :D

 

Tom Riddle hated how weak he was. _How dependent._

Being freed of the locket had been such a relief! Finally, he could see the world! Be _someone_ again, rather than barely something.

But then he had realized...

He was still a prisoner.

He hadn’t be able to go further than a few dozen steps, out of what had looked like the Gryffindor dormitories. Until he had felt to weak for even a single step more.

So he had went back to his locket, and to his sleeping bearer. And he’d felt a _pull_. Something that urged him to touch, to get closer. So he had run his hands through the boy’s wild black hair, and in a flash, every little sensations from the past months had come back to him

 _Harry Potter_. That was the boy’s name. He’d found Tom’s locket, and had loved it immediately. Enough that he’d hide it from his friends. Enough that he wore it every day, only taking it off when showering.

Harry dreamt of Tom. Often. And he knew who he was. Had shouted his name across train stations and dark chambers. Had drawn a sword against him and fired red jets of magic at him. Had called him by his chosen name...

And once he had whispered his name against Tom’s lips – the first time in decades he had felt like he actually _had_ lips – and only that name between them had seemed to make him realize what he was doing, and he’d disappeared from the dream, leaving Tom to fall back into nothingness.

But he hadn’t stayed in nothingness much longer. Harry had dreamt of him again, and again, and as days and weeks went, Tom had been able to _feel_ more of the outside world, and to, somehow, almost communicate with the bearer of his horcrux. Not through words, but through images, or suggestive thoughts, and one of them…

“ _Open.”_

Harry had passed out, and Tom had come out. And tried to leave. And came back.

When Harry had waken up, Tom had discovered a pair of green eyes, the same shocking colour as the killing curse.

And he had smiled to hide the dread that he felt at the idea of being tied up so deeply to him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“He could have been communicating with someone outside of school.”

Draco threw a dirty look at Pansy Parkinson. Look that she gleefully ignored in favour of flipping through the last number of  _Witch Weekly_.

“No. _I told you_ , it’s someone who has access to his dormitory...”

“He could have been referring to something that happened during the holidays," Blaise Zabini countered.

He too seemed more than ready to be done with this conversation. Which was mind boggling to Draco. How could they call themselves Slytherins when they showed so little interest in something that had the potential to ruin their enemies?  

Or at least Potter. Which Draco would take any day.

“He could have...” Draco admitted. “But,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Remember last week? Didn’t I point out that he looked like shit?”

Blaise and Pansy rolled their eyes. Vincent looked confused and Gregory said:

“Doesn’t Potter always look like shit?”

He elbowed Vincent and they both laughed obnoxiously. 

“Merlin, he… That’s not the point Greg!" Draco had to fight the urge to face-palm. Those two were useful to have around when it came to pushing people out of the way in crowded hallways or stir trouble with hot blooded Gryffindors, but when it came to information gathering and plotting? Fucking useless. "He looked… He looked like he hadn’t sleep in three days!”

“So which one is it?” asked Theodore Nott, drawing the four's attention to where he'd been sitting silently in his armchair, seemingly absorbed by some arithmancy book. Even Pansy lowered her magazine, looking suddenly impassioned by the subject at hand, though Draco suspected that it had more to do with her not so discreet crush on Nott than anything else. “Is Potter nuts and talking to his shadow or is there really someone who’s got it out for him – I mean, apart from the Dark Lord? Because I can tell you, he won’t like it one bit if someone offs the Boy Who Lived before he can.”

 

* * *

 

_Too weak to speak, too weak to walk away. Too weak to wield a wand._

But not powerless.

Oh, it wasn’t _his_ power, no. Not _his_ magic.

It was Harry’s.

Just as Tom was using his life-force to fortify himself, he could also use his magic – those were intricately connected, after all. So sometimes, when his emotions were particularly strong, he could tap into it, redirect it or refine it. To blow things up when Harry was angry. To trip some little trollop that thought that she could touch what was Tom’s when he was flustered. To add intent to a thoughtless memory charm when he was still opened raw by life-altering revelations.

Though there was one thing he could do on his own.

Touch minds.

Maybe because he’d been a master legilimens since he’d been old enough to know mind reading had a wizard name and to find the books referring to it, perfecting his natural skill into flawless technique.

Or maybe because he could speak directly to other souls, bypassing the natural barriers of the mind, to touch directly what made the individual.

That was how he could hear Harry’s soul – or mind? Could it be the same thing? He wasn’t mindless, after all, even thought the horcruxes were supposed to be _soul_ jars - sing and whisper at him when they were close, had heard the hum of it even from inside the locket.

That was how he’d brought down what was left of Snape’s occlumency shields. They’d been already weakened by the veritaserum he’d slipped I his tea, so he only had had to give a little push to make them crumble entirely, leaving free range for the cruciatus to do it’s job.

Because that was how that spell worked. I _told_ you that you were hurting. And it took very skilled – or very sadistic wizards to convey that message across convincingly.

And Snape knew that. And he knew how the curse worked. So he’d been able to fight it. Keep in mind that the pain wasn’t real.

Harry was neither very skilled nor very sadistic. But he had raw power. And he was hurt - a life long pain that he had finally found one of the origins of - and willing to inflict as much pain as he’d been dealt.

He only needed a little help.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Harry had decided to ignore Riddle.

He was doing a pretty fine job of it, if you’d asked him. Not that anyone would ask, because one of the reason he was doing it in the first place was because he didn’t wanted anyone to know about it.

And the best indication that he was succeeding, was just how mad Riddle was.

So mad in fact that Harry caught him screaming in his direction – silently, of course – a few times, from the corner of his eyes.

It made him feel better. To know that he wasn’t alone in this. That even though Riddle was the source of his problem, he too resented their present situation.

That he was probably as trapped as Harry was.

_He isn’t there because he wants it._

But how exactly was he there?

 _You're going mad,_ or _the Dark Lord is dead and haunting you_ , said the books. 

 _Maybe I am_ , and _I would know_ , Harry thought back at them. Not that the books cared. Or Riddle, apparently. He'd silently scoffed at the first pile Harry had dropped on a library table the day after their first - and last - true conversation.

"What? You got something to contribute? So I don't need to sort through all that rubbish, maybe?" Riddle had just crossed his arms and looked away. "Then no faces. And no fucking around."

Of course Riddle had ignored that too. Only a few seconds later, he'd used magic.   

A heavy book had shot right out of its shelf, and had almost knocked over Colin Creevey, who just happened to be there - right - and Harry had to reassure the fourth year boy that _no_ , he hadn't been attacking him, wasn't angry at him, they were fine, peachy. Yes he was still welcome to the DA, _seriously Colin, we're fine_.

"That was you, right?" he'd muttered angrily as he was picking up the book and putting it back in its place. It wasn't really a question - he wouldn't get any answer anyway - just a logical conclusion. "You're a fucking child, you know that?"

Riddle had just looked satisfied. Harry had felt a little bit sick.

And that was the last thing he would say to him in two weeks.

 

* * *

 

Potter was spending an awful lot of time at the library, Draco had noticed. Alone.

Which meant he was hiding something from Granger, because Salazar knew the Mudblood would have been ecstatic that one of her best friends had suddenly decided that getting serious about his magical education wasn't such a bad idea in the end. And she would have been right there with him.

But it seemed like Potter was avoiding her on purpose. Also the books Draco saw him pick up from the library's shelves weren't exactly... Mainstream magical education. 

No, they were about ghosts and possessions and memory related magic. Those weren't things Hogwart's curriculum was covering more than in passing. And they certainly weren't studying any of that in their current classes.

This sudden passion for learning was linked to what Draco had overheard, he would have bet his wand on it.

Potter thought he was possessed, Draco understood a few days into his stalking. And it kept him from sleeping. 

He looked pale, and sort of apathetic, like there wasn't enough energy in him to animate him entirely. 

Sometimes Draco would look at him in classes and he would be taking notes like he was under the Imperius, tirelessly but without any life to him.

And there was something else...

Wherever Potter was, the so called poltergeist was too.

Books would fall to the ground while he was sitting in the library, cracks appear on windows when he passed through hallways, bottle of ink spilled in the classes he shared with Draco.

_Poltergeist my arse._

Any self respecting wizard knew that poltergeist couldn't stay invisible. They had too much energy in them to be discreet in any way.

_And they say the Ravenclaws are the clever ones._

There was only one explanation: Potter had just - really - finally - lost it.

Draco had heard of similar cases. Wizards going mad and losing control over their magic. They were cautionary tales, mostly. _Don't mess with magic you don't understand, or it'll scramble your brain and your wand won't know which way's up anymore._ And there was no doubt that if someone at Hogwarts had been mixed up with magic they didn't and couldn't possibly understand, it was Potter.

He wondered how long it would take for the boy wonder to be carted off to Saint Mungo if Umbridge - and through her the Ministry - were to realize this.

He was reluctant to go to her directly, though. He didn’t like her. Oh, he’d been the first to say that half of what they were told at Hogwarts was rubbish, and to complain about the non-existent safety standards. But he also valued his personal freedom.

He liked being able to use his wand in hallways, actually wanted to be taught real Defense classes - even though he would have preferred to be instructed in the Dark Arts themselves, Defense was sill better than nothing - and would never admit it publicly but... Some of the Weasley twins's invention were too bloody brilliant and useful for him to take a pass. But now they were almost impossible to buy from intermediaries... 

She was also a very unpleasant person in a general way. 

So, no, he would not give this victory to Umbridge. 

But there was another person he could use...

 

* * *

 

Tom Riddle hated being ignored.

He also hated that he felt such need for attention, but he hated the lack of it even more.

 _Would it have mattered as much had it been anyone else?_ he wondered. _Would I have felt the same pull?_

He was tied to Harry by more than the horcrux around the boy's neck, he'd quickly gathered, even before hearing about the prophecy. 

So it was only natural that he felt possessive of him. 

No it wasn't even a matter of _feeling_.

Harry _belonged_ to him.

And so being ignored was not only insulting but unaceptable. 

But he didn't have much choices in the matter.

Not when he didn't had a voice and demanding Harry's attention with physical contact was out of the question... First of all because it felt a bit too desperate in Tom's opinion. And secondly because even though he greatly enjoyed witnessing the deterioration of his locket's wearer's sanity, there wasn't any advantage in people thinking he was going crazy. That would attract to much attention from unwanted sources. Like Dumbledore. So no brusque touching. No shoving. No smacking, even though some days his hands itched to backhand the little git.

Damn he felt so frustrated. Irrationally angry too. Angrier than he remembered ever being when he was whole. Almost... _Unstable_. Just like he'd felt in the days following the creation of his two first horcruxes. Some days he had trouble forming rational thoughts, and his mind would get overridden by a sound strangely similar to that of an heartbeat.

Those days he couldn't wait for the night to come. 

At night he could pretend that his touches were welcome. And his need for attention wouldn't felt as pathetic as it did during the day. Not when he would trace the lightning bolt shaped scar that marked Harry's forehead. 

 _His_ mark.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry was growing more and more frustrated as the days went. Nothing. There was nothing that came close enough to his situation in Hogwarts library’s ancient tomes that he could point at it and say:  _“ah, so that’s what’s happening to me.”_

At breakfast, lunch and dinner, Harry would scan the four tables, looking for a black notebook in a student’s hands. During classes too, at least those he could stay awake in.

He was still feeling exceedingly tired, had dozed off more in a week than in his entire Hogwarts career. 

Hermione had taken to copy every lesson he would miss a significant part of, from the moment he fell asleep to the moment he would wake up. No more, no less so it was still up to him to take notes when he was awake, but he would be eternally grateful to her for it, even more so when she failed to mention it, even to urge him to make an effort.

He could see she was worried though, and Ron too. Knew the hushed conversations they interrupted whenever he would come sit with them where about him. But he didn’t feel he had any right to get mad about it. Not when he was hiding such a big thing from them.

On Thursday evening, they called for an AD meeting.

“We can reschedule, Harry, if you’re not feeling up to it,” Hermione had said before they left the common room. 

“I’m feeling perfectly up to it, Hermione,” Harry had scoffed, tapping his wand nervously against his leg.

This would be the first meeting since Riddle had appeared, and Harry was reluctant to let him see the Room of Requirement and which students gathered there under the name of one of the greatest enemies the Dark Lord had. But that didn’t meant he was in no condition to teach!

As Harry walked the length of the hallway back and forth, he chanced a quick look at Riddle - one of the very few he had in almost two weeks.

He looked shocked, then angry, and Harry wondered if it was because they knew something about Hogwarts that he did not, or if he had known about it before and was indignant about the Room being used by students that he deemed unworthy.

_Hey at least we're not using the Chambers of Secrets!_

  

* * *

 

 

"Keep doing exactly that and Voldemort doesn't stand a chance!" Harry was saying to one of his friend, a mediocre boy called Neville Longbottom.

_A stain on the Twenty-Eight's name._

He'd successfully cast a disarming charm, and Tom would have roared in laughter if only he could make a sound. As if that boy could defeat...

_Voldemort._

Tom Riddle hated Lord Voldemort.

He hated that he’d been the part of them that had been forced to sleep for forty-nine years, while the part that had kept on living… That  _thing_  that dared to call itself by the name Tom had chosen, had failed.

Failed, so utterly that most people believed he was dead.

But Harry… Harry believed he was alive. That he was _back_. And his friends believed him.

 _No, he doesn’t just believe it. He_ saw _it._

And Tom had seen it too, in Harry’s nightmares. It had taken him a few occurrence to understand what that snake-like creature with blood red eyes had been, but now there was no doubt.

It meant his horcruxes had worked… But that didn’t do a lot to comfort Tom. Because it also meant that he had  _needed_  them. That he’d been vanquished, and had only survived because of his fail-safes.

Oh he had been powerful and feared throughout the wizarding world at some point before that. He had had followers among the old families. Tom’s old classmates and their children. He’d seen ten of their names on an issue of the Daily Prophet that had been left in a corner of the Gryffindor’s common room. They had broke out of Azkaban a few days before his awakening.

It should have been a clear sign that their master was back.

But they didn’t believe  _he_  had been the one to do it. No, the Ministry was blaming a wizard named Sirius Black.  _Orion’s grand-father was named Sirius_ , Tom remembered. Maybe he had named his own son that way. He seemed like a powerful wizard, at any rate. To be able to escape Azkaban was no mean feat. Maybe he would seek him out once he was at full power.

 _Voldemort_  sure didn’t deserved such a talented follower.

 

* * *

 

The next Friday, Harry took his lunch out in the park, and sat on the lake’s bank. They were almost two weeks into February, and the weather was still chilly. But the cold felt good, chasing away some of the mist that seemed to have taken a hold of his brain lately.

He was frustrated, and tired. So, so tired.

Both physically and mentally.

Lying constantly was taking it’s toll on him. Not being able to share his worries with Ron and Hermione... Granted that was his decision, but that didn't make it easier... Practicing occlumency on his own, too, was pretty exhausting. And he didn't even knew if his new approach would be efficient against Snape. 

Something he knew, though, was that mental rigor wasn't for him. He needed to let some things out.

So he just talked.

“I don’t get it. How did you do it? Create this… This memory of you.” He turned toward Riddle, who’s eyes were wide and mouth slightly opened in surprise at being talked to. Then it was like curtains falling before a stage, his features falling into an apathetic, impassible mask. Harry laughed softly, mirthlessly. “The first one I mean. The one in the diary.”  _Ah, there it is._  Burning eyes and furrowed eyebrows. Tightened fists and tensed jaw. “Because there is nothing about this kind of magic in the library. And where else would you have learned about it?”

He had a few idea about where else such knowledge could be found. Firstly it could have been removed since Riddle had been in school. Maybe by Dumbledore after Harry had brought him the diary. Maybe it was in a book he had bought himself, in Hogsmead, Diagon or Knockturn Alley. Or maybe from on of his wealthy classmates’ family library. Harry had no doubt that even at school, Tom Riddle had been influential enough to request such a thing of a fellow Slytherin.

But he wanted to see Riddle’s reaction to his question.

Riddle tapped his lips with one long, pale index for a few seconds, looking as if he was seriously considering indulging Harry.

This time it was his turn to be surprise, because Riddle started rummaging through Harry's bag, taking out a piece of parchment and an autofilling quill.

**_"There used to be a book. In the restricted section. I took it with me when I left."_ **

Harry's breath caught in his throat, and he had to make a conscious effort to exhale and inhale again before asking:

"What was it about?"

There was another pause during witch Riddle's dark eyes swept over Harry, as if he was wondering if he was worthy of knowing.

Finally he scribbled a single word, and dropped parchment and quill in Harry's lap before disappearing.

_**"Souls."** _

 

* * *

 

 

He didn't reappear before the evening, when Harry was preparing for bed while listening to Ron's rambling about Gryffindor's chances to win this year's Quidditch Cup.

To sum it up, they weren't good.

Harry groaned in compassion at Ron's complaint, though he found it rather irritating to have to listen to it when he could't even play. 

"Alright, let's move on to more pleasant subjects," Ron said, jumping onto his bed and grinning at Harry... And wiggling his eyebrows in a way that was disturbingly reminiscent of Fred and George.

"Anxious about your date?"

"What d... Oh." 

The next day would be Valentine’s Day. His first date with Cho.

How could he have forgotten? He'd been waiting for this for two years! 

"Harry? Mate?" Harry refocused on Ron. "Wow you're alright? Thought I might have lost you for a second. You're freaking out that bad?"

"No, I just..."

He made a vague gesture.

"Eh, don't worry. You kissed already. Anything after that should be a piece of cake, right?"

Ron's pillow exploded, filling the room with white feathers. 

"BLOODY HELL!"

Harry couldn't resist but explode too... In laughter. 

"I'm sorry Ron..." he managed to say between two snorts. "You should see your face!"

"Bloody poltergeist!" Ron whined, spitting out a feather. "Go haunt someone else for a change!" 

In the end they had to call Hermione up to help them clean the mess - neither of the five boys rooming there knew any good cleaning spell... _"What are house-elves for if not..." "Ronald!" "Just kidding Hermione, don't go please!"_ \- and with calm and order came back Harry's preoccupations. He went to bed without a word to his friends, and closed the curtains around him, a knew habit that the other Gryffindor boys had, without surprise, welcomed with crude jokes.

Right, as if he was about to jerk off with a teenage Dark Lord watching him. 

No he had the showers for that. At least Riddle had never followed him _there_. In fact he hadn't set a foot in the bathroom since he'd stolen Harry's locket.

He was about to fall asleep when Riddle appeared just above him, his pale face looking like a disembodied apparition in the darkness... Until barely an instant later, when his palms hit the mattress on each side of Harry's pillow, and his knees came in contact with Harry's hips.

He was smiling. A wicked, ferocious smile that made Harry's heart thump even harder than the sudden proximity between their bodies had, and this time, when Riddle's mouth opened, he heard something. A word, whispered in a silken voice, that left goosebumps on his skin and a hitch in his breath.

_“Harry.”_


End file.
